The Online Gamer Diary tells the tale of the online gamer and the online games he encounters on his travels. RPGDot wishes you lots of fun with this diary. Feel free to comment, ask questions or suggest new topics on this diary via RPGFool or mail us.

This time we feature:

A Tale in the Desert
Last week we learned of a new massive multiplayer game, named A Tale in the Desert by eGenesis. Now I can hear you wondering, what kind of game this is. It can't be a space online game, as there are no deserts there. And it's not a combat oriented RPG either. No it's something else. It's a... It's a .... It's something completely different!

There is no combat in it, no swords, no armor and no player-killers. Now don't go running away right now. There is more to life than just killing things you know!

Now that we established what it is not, let me tell you what it is from the available information. The game takes place in the time that the Egyptians ruled. These ancient Egyptians once wrote about the Seven Disciplines of Man: Leadership, Thought, The Human Body, Architecture, Worship, Conflict and Art&Magic.

Then there are seven challenges per discipline that a player can decide to take on. The following gives an example of the Challenge of Trust in the Leadership discipline:

To complete this challenge, a player must bury a significant amount of gold in the deep desert, and then get 1 mile away from it. Next, he must reveal the location to ten trusted friends, and allow 24 hours to pass. After the time has passed, he can retrieve the treasure. If the treasure has been stolen, the player loses the gold and fails the test. There is no penalty for the thief.

Or how about this one:

A difficult test within the discipline of Art&Music is called Fireworks. You must gather, make, or trade for various resins and alchemical supplies, and then assemble them at a laboratory. The timing and combinations for igniting the components is left to the player. Each night a fireworks contest is held, and all citizens who have gathered to watch are allowed to vote. The winner of the contest has completed the Fireworks challenge.

You have to complete the challenge by using your negotiation skills. Politics play an important role and your character advances by completing and/or participating in large projects.

You start as an Egyptian peasant and are not limited to a single challenge, you can take all if you want in all disciplines. However they claim it's not possible to complete all challenges in the one year time span over which the story unfolds.

After you have completed all seven challenges, you have mastered the discipline. Only these masters can then complete the ultimate goal within the discipline. For architecture this is building the Monument of Architecture. Once such a monument gets built, the society has perfected the discipline and the game world changes significantly. What happens then or what happens when all seven disciplines have been perfected remains a secret for now.

When the players make progress towards the seven disciplines, certain events will occur. These events must be dealt with by the players. The game will unfold differently depending on how the players react to these events. In time, Egyptian society will conquer the challenges and master the seven disciplines, and the game will be over. And yes, when it's over, it's over, so after a year the game ends and it will not be run again.

This means you have to work together with other players to achieve the ultimate end of the game. To do this politics play an important part. A player can enter a petition to change the rules of the game, which is similar in real life when a petition is made to change a law. The player must be able to get 1000 signatures from other players. When the petition is entered it will trigger a vote, which lasts for 24 hours. If a majority of players agree on the proposed change than a programmer will change the rules on the fly. That's right, it just changes without the need for a reset of the server. Which makes sense as in real life our world doesn't get reset either after a law is changed.

But not every change is possible, changing the rules in such a way that violates the basic physics of the world will be met by a veto of the eGenesis people.

And here are some more details about the game:

• · Your character statistics will include your level in each of the disciplines, your reputation and a great number (around 100) of minor skills.
• · You can also personalize your character by choosing a skin for it (10male, 10 female) and by selecting a color for clothing.
• · A Tale in the Desert uses their own graphics engine based on OpenGL, because they found that it's the best way to render outdoor scenes.
• · They claim that the server/engine model that has been selected is totally lag-free even on a 28K modem.
• · They are targeting for a public beta in July.

Well this is a different game indeed. It will not attract the Hack&Slash addict but it will attract various other players who are ready for a big challenge on their intelligence and reasoning abilities. Make sure to check back at RPGDot for the interview we are having with Andrew Tepper, from eGenesis.

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